Community Rights versus Individual Privileges: Responding to Property Abandonment

Edward J. Dodson

[Reprinted from Equal Rights, Vol.35, No.1, Fall 2005]

Despite the demographic trend bringing people back into cities to live, large sections of our cities remain nearly empty, with hundreds or even thousands of abandoned, boarded-up buildings. As city agencies demolish these buildings, the number of empty lots expands - lots for which their is no market demand (not even by speculators).

Not more than a few decades ago, these properties were occupied and used.

Abandonment and dereliction occurred rapidly, however, as employers moved elsewhere or went out of business altogether. The young followed them, leaving poorer residents of an older generation behind to age in place.

For many reasons, including ignorance, destructive public policy and corruption, governments proved unable to respond to this crisis. The quality of life for millions of people suffered while our societal and institutional framework slowly adjusted. Here in Philadelphia, for example, a long process of negotiation and engagement has brought public and private resources together to stimulate targeted investments. Subsidies have been utilized to get the ball rolling, so to speak, and "market forces" have then taken off.

The city's historic neighborhoods avoided the wrecking ball and represent the heart of the city's residential community.

The same process has occurred in cities such as Boston, Baltimore, Charles ton, and Savannah. In the nation's heartland, the revitalization of Chattanooga, Tennessee is pointed to as a remarkable success story.

As we know, none of these cities has taken the step to shift taxes from property improvements and to land values. Predictably, the core parts of the cities are doing fine; poorer citizens are even more marginalized today than in the past; and, some sections of the cities continue to deteriorate while ringed by prosperity.

Altering the source of public revenue is, ultimately, the solution to this problem. Then, market forces will gradually create a full employment economy. Evert with our "tax shifting" measures in place, communities ought to exercise rights to protect their quality of life against those u ho leave property unattended for an inappropriate length of time. Under current laws, the process of condemnation of derelict properties takes forever. Only when the owner fails to pay property taxes for several years will cities move to take the property at a tax sale. What happens when only makes the situation worse: the property goes into the city's inventory with no firm plan for rehabilitation or demolition. Years pass, and the property becomes a worsening blight on the neighborhood.

City government needs to work in tandem with neighborhood organizations able to take properties, quickly make repairs and return them to occupancy.

This could, be accomplished by deed restrictions stating that ownership of land and the improvement thereon was conditioned upon continued occupancy, that if the property went unoccupied, for a period of three (or five) years, ownership would automatically be transferred jointly to the community and a nonprofit community development organization. Special circumstances will always occur; for example, the owner of an aging building in need, of extensive rehabilitation and modernization might need to remove all tenants for an extensive period while construction is underway. However, when abandonment has clearly occurred, the community is, in the view of this writer, inherently empowered to protect the overall quality of life.